Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/120

 captain and the master were both wounded, the captain dying within eight days.

That day, and the following night, the people of the city rejoiced greatly with trumpets and kettle-drums so that it seemed the very world was sinking, and they opened all the streets and bridges over the water, as they had them before, and lighted fires, and placed night watchmen at a distance of two bow-shots from our camp; for, as we were all so disordered, and wounded, and without arms, we needed to rest and recuperate ourselves. Meanwhile the enemy had time to send their messengers to many provinces subject to them, telling them how they had obtained a great victory and killed many Christians, and that they would soon finish all of us, and that by no means would they sue for peace with us; and the proofs they carried were the heads of the two horses and some of those Christians they had killed, carrying them about, and showing them wherever it seemed useful, which confirmed the rebels more than ever in their stubbornness. However, lest they should become too proud and divine our weakness, some Spaniards on foot and on horseback, with many of our friends, would go into the city to fight every day, albeit they never could gain more than some of the bridges of the next street before reaching the square.

Two days after our rout, which was already known in all the neighbourhood, the natives of a town called Cuarnaguacar [Cuernavaca], who had been subject to the city but had given themselves for our friends, came to the camp and told me that the people of Marinalco, their neighbours did them much injury and destroyed their fields, and that they also had joined with the large province of Cuisco, and intended to attack them and kill them because they had given themselves as vassals of Your Majesty, and our friends; once the